Due to the recent development and changes in technologies related to images and videos, various desires of users for shortening a printing time, compositing and editing images, and the like are increasing.
Accordingly, various photograph generation apparatuses such as a sticker photograph vending machine, a kiosk, and an automatic ticketing machine have appeared, and it is now possible to generate and edit a picture using the above-mentioned photograph generation apparatuses instead of personal cameras in various external spaces such as a movie theater, a department store, a shopping mall, and a downtown.
The automatic ticketing machine refers to an apparatus that issues tickets in place of people in a movie theater, a stadium, a concert hall, an exhibition hall, a museum, a tourist site, and the like. The tickets issued by the automatic ticketing machine show viewing information such a date, a movie name, a match name, a performance name, an exhibition name, a viewing place, a viewing location, and the like, and a general automatic ticketing machine may include a personal computer (PC), a monitor, a receipt printer, a card reader, a bill recognizer, a fee calculator.
Conventionally, the automatic ticketing machine has played a role of only issuing tickets containing the viewing information. However, due to the recent development of technologies for processing and compositing image data, the automatic ticketing machine provides additional enjoyment to a user by providing the user with an instant picture taking service or instant picture compositing service with a celebrity/cartoon character/background using a provided camera or a picture input by the user. Particularly, the automatic ticketing machine has a printer mounted therein and allows the user to own a ticket on which the photographed or composited picture is printed. Also, the photographed or composited picture may be sent via a mobile phone, e-mail, and social network service (SNS) through wired and wireless network connections and shared.
More specifically, as mentioned above, in addition to taking a picture using a camera, the photograph generation apparatus including the above-described automatic ticketing machine provides services of inserting an additional image, compositing a picture, correcting a picture, inserting a text, and compositing or editing a picture taken by a user with a picture (hereinafter, a photograph object) of an entertainer or celebrity such as an actor, an actress, and a singer and also provides a service in which the photograph object appears in a photographing standby screen of the photograph generation apparatus and a picture is taken as if the user is taking a picture with the photograph object.
However, in many cases, the photograph generation apparatus that provides various services as above is provided in a space having a large floating population or an area having a large number of visitors. Thus, in many cases, the photograph generation apparatus is located at an open space, i.e., outside, instead of a closed space equipped with separate lighting only for taking a picture.
Consequently, the photograph generation apparatus located in the above-mentioned open space is highly affected by a light source when generating a photograph. Particularly, when there is backlight behind a user to be photographed or a brightness of a space in which the photographing takes place has a relatively low illuminance, quality of a photographed picture tends to be extremely deteriorated due to the influence of the light source. Particularly, there is a problem in that color inconsistency with the above-described photograph object occurs, and thus it is impossible to generate or composite a photograph with a satisfactory quality.
Accordingly, to solve the above problem, a technology for correcting a brightness of a picture by a software approach, i.e., a program, has appeared. However, when there is severe backlight or an illuminance is extremely low as describe above, because the photograph generation apparatus is highly affected by the light source, the light source is not sufficiently corrected only by the above software approach, and the above-described problem cannot be solved.
Therefore, a method for solving the above-described problem is required.